Standards: Missing From the Debate

At the request of Education Week, the Widmeyer Group
conducted a focus group of seniors from an urban New Jersey high school
to determine how students feel about national standards. All but one of
the 11 students were in "alpha," or honors, classes. Half the honors
students had not started in honors classes as freshmen. Below is a
summary of their remarks. We have given the students fictitious names
to preserve their anonymity.

In the course of deciding what students should know and be able to
do in various subjects, the national standards-setters apparently
neglected to consult one group: the students who one day would have to
meet the standards. None of the high achievers in our focus group had
heard of the standards documents or seen copies of them.

But national standards could help students like these avoid a basic
problem they identified in their schooling: Although they are almost
finished with high school, they still don't know why some of the
material they are learning is worthwhile.

"They tell you what to do, but they don't tell you what you're doing
it for," Jamal said of his teachers. "Our society has this attitude,
you know, 'Well, you're telling me this, but you're not my mother, and
I don't have to do that. If you want me to do this, you give me a
reason why I should do this.' I think we are entitled to know why we
are doing what the teacher tells us to do."

If students know the implications of what they are studying, they
may work harder, the group said.

"Students feel like, well, if it's not important, why should I do
it? Why should I make an effort?" Ruth said. "If they tell you it's
important, it's like, 'Oh, this is going to determine what I'm going to
do for the rest of the years, so I have to do good.'"

If the students are confused about why they're being taught certain
things, they are no clearer about their career plans. By this time in
their schooling, these seniors said, they thought they would have
chosen careers, but many of them still don't know what they want to do.
Some have decided on a career but don't know how to pursue
it.

Special Treatment

The students see wide disparities in the treatment accorded honors
and regular-track students. Honors students, they said, are given more
encouragement and are held to higher expectations than other students.
In high school, Crystal said, "it's like, if you're at the top, you're
peaches and cream. But if you're at the bottom, it's almost like them
telling you, 'If you're not at the top, you're not going to make
it.'"

Teachers in regular classes just want their students to graduate,
they said, while honors students are expected to graduate with A's and
have a career.

"If you're not at the level of an alpha student or an honors
student, the teachers that do teach the lower levels don't tend to take
much interest," Crystal said. "There are students out there in the
regular low-group classes who have a harder time learning, so the
teachers figure they shouldn't have to teach obedience. It's a
disadvantage for people who are in lower levels because they don't get
that extra help."

Students who are not in honors classes also may lose out because
they rely on instructors who may or may not teach them the crucial
material.

"It's like, once a teacher is given an assignment to do, she'll base
it upon that," Everett said. "And if she sees something that she won't
have the time to teach, or she sees that they're taking too long to
learn it, she'll just scratch one of them off. And what about if what
she skips is in the test?"

"It's like the teachers base their teaching on what they think the
students will comprehend instead of giving them the full extent of what
they're supposed to," Jamal said. "So when it comes time for the test
and they fail it, they have a reason to fail it only because they've
never learned what they're supposed to."

Indeed, tests are of grave concern to these students, especially the
state's High School Proficiency Test, which students must pass in 11th
grade to graduate. The test, which measures achievement in reading,
writing, and mathematics, was instituted in 1990 but did not count
toward graduation until October 1993. The students complained that they
had little time to learn the material being tested during that phase-in
period.

"The majority of people that passed the first time were all alpha
students," Crystal said. "And it's not because the people didn't
attempt to take the test seriously. It's because they weren't even
taught. You can't expect a group of people to pass a test if the
information isn't given to them."

Tests are unfair, Linda said, because schools "base everything on
the exams, and it's not good because some people are smart, and they do
good in school, and then when it comes to a test, they fail
it."

Shifting Standards

The students agreed that standards differ from school to school and
from district to district within the state. Many students, they said,
do not know what the standards are in their own school.

"It really has to do with the school system because not all the
systems are the same," Joanie said. "You have different school systems,
so everybody learns different things."

For that reason, the students support the implementation of national
standards because they will insure that each student will have to meet
the same objectives. However, they cautioned, regular-track students
confronted with the more demanding material called for in the standards
will need to be taught at their own level.

"Instead of giving them basic math, give them algebra, but have a
teacher to teach them on their level," Crystal said. "So when they do
get these tests, they understand what's going on."

Students would work harder to achieve the standards since "these are
the people we have to compete against for jobs," Ruth said.

But what happens once students with the equivalent education descend
on the job market? "What I'm hearing is equality, right?" Linda asked.
"But what if her and me have everything the same and we go for a job,
who will get it?"

The students could not answer that question, but they agreed that
national standards would raise students' self-esteem.

"I think that people have to learn instead of saying, 'Oh, you're
going to just pass.' You need to get above that. Say they're going to
pass plus do more," Regina said. "They set such low, low standards that
they keep going lower instead of going higher."

"A lot of times they treat the kids in the school like they have a
disability. Like there's something the matter with them," Linda said.
"They've got to teach these kids that they're smart and bright and that
they can do the work."

Students achieve more when their parents are interested in their
work, the students agreed, but teachers also play a large role in
encouraging them.

"If you set good standards, and you have people behind the students,
just to let them know there is a way to succeed, [that] it just takes a
little effort, then it would get better," Jamal said.

Most of the students thought they were already working hard and
getting a quality education. When they looked at samples of the
standards, though, they were surprised.

"I'd try my best to get a D," Regina said. "If you gave that right
now, I would be so stressed out. This can't compare to the work I get
now, and I'm already stressed out."

"If they were to give me a test, like at the end of senior year,
based upon what this says right here, I would fail," Everett said.

The students believe that to be effective, standards should be
implemented starting in kindergarten. Most said it's too late for them
now to learn all the information.

"I think this is a good curriculum, but you can't just force it upon
[students] or just throw it at them," Ruth said. "But I'm glad that
they finally can see that we need these things and that they're not
saying, 'Well, they can't do it.' Because I think it's better to set a
high goal and try to reach it than to just put it lower. I'm glad they
set such high standards so we could at least try to attempt
it."

Student Standards

The group also had a word of advice for the standards-setters: Look
to the future.

"Standards can't be set upon what they think we should know,"
Everett said. "They should be set upon what we have to learn based on
what we're going to do, where we're going to go, and what we really
need to learn to work."

"You have to base learning on the future, on what's going to happen
years from now," Jamal agreed, "not what's going on right now or not
what happened back then."

"I would like to learn [these standards] because I have three
brothers who are already in college, and this is what they do," Ruth
said. "So I would like to know that I'll be prepared for it. I don't
want to go to college not knowing anything."

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